


Forevermore

by calembours



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Reality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calembours/pseuds/calembours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam was brought back, but he wasn't brought back alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forevermore

Blue and white.

Endless, quiet - he chokes on the inhale when he realizes he needs to breathe and suddenly he’s alive with sensation. There’s the shift of his chest heaving as he gasps and dark flashes in his vision made by quick blinking. He can feel the press of grass beneath him, the sharp-soft pokes along his back and side.

Another breath. Sky. The blue-and-white is sky.

Everything else floods into place with an endless push of remembrance. Hellfire and sulfur, an angel’s grace burning tightly around him, anger, anger, so much pain... Two brothers raging, and Sam so small, so helpless between them as a flicker of a human soul.

Shaking in the grass, Sam stares up at the graveyard crows and wonders _am i still there, was I left behind_?

 

-

 

It’s not so much ego as it is experience that makes Sam question why his grandfather, of all people, is resurrected when he is. They formulate theories, compare memories, and all it does is make Sam wonder if the universe is trying to balance out his return: an older and a younger, one from Heaven and one from Hell.

It’s not a perfect theory, but it’s the best that they can come up with, other than someone was offered a two-for-one deal on souls that answer to ‘Samuel’. It’s laughably ironic in a way that Sam can’t make much sense of.

Though, really, it should have been his first clue.

 

-

 

Samuel is a lot like Dean, rough around the edges with a soft spot for deserts. He makes a spectacular lasagna, and his pockets are full of mints and shotgun shells. He’s got a sarcastic sense of humour that bites when he’s put on the spot, and Samuel can slip from zero to kill shot when a hint of danger is present. Family’s important to Samuel, having it, keeping it, staying together. Family game nights are seeing who can take apart, clean and reassemble guns the fastest, followed by supernatural trivia and cool bottles of beer.

“Should tell him, you know,” Samuel says one night. They’re watching crap television, but it’s all new to Samuel, who’s been dead since the seventies. He chuckles sometimes at reruns that Sam’s seen far too many times to count. Dean laughs in all the same places.

“Deserves his chance at the apple pie life,” Sam tells Samuel, not looking up from the book in his lap. He’s reading through Samuel’s lore books, which is a fresh change from Bobby’s stock and only better because it’s not something he almost has memorized.

Samuel makes a sound that Sam recognizes as disapproval, his mouth twisting right before he sips from his beer. His wedding ring gleams in the light of the television, so strange and out of place that Sam can’t help but notice it. This is his grandfather, who married and raised a child who also married and had a child. Family. As if echoing the thought, Samuel tells him, “Still don’t like it. He’s a hunter, and he’s gonna get those two killed.”

“Dean knows what he’s doing,” Sam mutters to his book.

Samuel slides a skeptical glance his way, and Sam goes shock still, knowing his mother probably helped him perfect his look and that Mary probably sat here just like this, making Samuel Campbell toss glances her way. Samuel shakes his head, says, “Can’t just leave the life.” There’s the shift and rustle of Samuel going through his pockets before he pops a mint into his mouth.

“He needs this,” Sam insisted, “He deserves a chance. He can be happy there.”

“Can he be happy, thinking his brother’s in Hell?”

Sam’s mouth sets in a line, his jaw clenching stubbornly. “We are not telling him.”

The beer bottle in Samuel’s hand drops to rest against his chest. “All right, Sammy,” he says, softer like they’re arguing about dinner plans or something as equally mundane, “I’m not looking to fight you.”

Sam deliberately ignores the way that ‘Sammy’ sounds in the air, and tells himself that Samuel didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just a nickname, and Samuel’s just like Dean.

Which, if he was really looking for it, should have meant something.

 

-

 

Sam feels like they should be alarmed. There are a two dozen crows perched politely in the trees at the fork of the path. When he glances over to Samuel out of the corner of his eye, his grandfather is looking straight ahead, relaxed as you please, but Dean’s eyeing them both from Samuel’s other side, and that’s more reassuring than Sam is willing to admit.

They’re hunting skin-walkers, and that’s right up their alley, but it’s at the request of skin-walkers that they’re doing it. Dean hates the idea, and for once Christian agrees with him, but Samuel apparently owes the raven that arrived on their doorstep a favour. After everything that had happened with Lenore, and more recently with Jesse, Sam’s trying to keep an open mind.

Samuel steps forward to greet the mob - Sam can see they’re all ravens now that they’re closer - and one flutters down from the tree. Wings flapping twice in succession, the body shifts until a man is standing in the bird’s place, shrugging his shoulders under a draped cloak of black feathers. Samuel offers him something that shines and jingles, which the skin-walker bird tucks away beneath his cloak. He offers a feather in return, and Samuel politely declines. It’s clearly a cultural thing, some sort of nicety that Sam doesn’t understand, and once they’re done, the skin-walker examines the rest of the hunters present.

Sam tries not to look hostile, but he meets the man’s gaze unwaveringly. The man’s eyes are not human - they glow strangely, even in the half-light of the afternoon sun, and it reminds Sam that this is technically a type of shapeshifter. Shapeshifters have silver-coated eyes, but they’re only seen in recordings. Sam doesn’t know what it means, that the eyes of skin-walkers are so obvious. Are they stronger? Weaker? Maybe they just don’t care.

The man cants his head slightly as he gazes at Sam, but Samuel clears his throat pointedly and the attention is stolen away.

“Follow me,” the man-raven murmurs. Ignoring both forks in the road, he pushes into the trees, walking beneath the branches filled with the other birds.

Samuel doesn’t hesitate to follow, and after a step, the rest of the hunters fall in line.

They find the rest of the skin-walkers down the slope of the wooded hill, some of them walking in human form, the rest as wolves, coyotes and one particularly large cougar. The raven leaves them once the hunters are within sight, bowing respectfully to Samuel before fading back into the trees.

Dean starts throwing hand signals in Sam’s direction, but Samuel turns and shakes his head. He indicates for Dean to divide off with Christian, and though Dean glowers about it, the two move into the trees, circling around the left side. Sam and Samuel move off to the right, and as planned, they wait sixty seconds before picking targets and shooting.

The element of surprise is definitely in their favour, but only for the first few moments. Skin-walker are quick, fast and fierce, and they often exhibit the same qualities as their chosen animals. There’s a man in a dark fur pelt, propped against a tree. With his eyes closed, Sam was almost sure that the man was sleeping.

“Oh shi-” Sam’s suddenly stumbling back as a large paw swipes at him, heavy claws digging into the bark of a tree. One of the skin-walkers is a bear, large and black-furred, eyes gleaming as they follow Sam’s movements.

Sam gets off one shot from his gun, tagging the bear in the shoulder and leaving a cloud of white ash hanging in the air. The bear roars and lumbers forward, bleeding sluggishly, but mostly unharmed. Sam’s second shot jams in the gun and he’s knocked back when the bear makes another swipe, catching him on the shoulder. Claws dig into Sam’s chest as he falls against the forest floor, and his gun goes flying. Swearing aloud, mostly stunned from impact and pain, Sam’s fingers barely work as he gropes his belt for the handle of his knife.

Somewhere he can hear Dean yelling, maybe at Christian, maybe just in general, and the sound of shots echoing in the trees. The bear rears above him, growling low and deep, and Sam can’t believe this is how he’s going to die. That he’s going to die again.

There’s another shot, much closer to Sam, and a spray of blood splatters above him. The shape of the bear seems to shiver, going slender and small until it becomes a man, dressed in a black bear hide. There’s a hole in his chest coated with white, and as Sam recovers enough to weakly scramble back, the glow fades from the skin-walker’s eyes.

The body drops next to Sam and Samuel’s standing above them with an expression on his face much fiercer and tighter than Sam’s seen before. “Y’okay, kiddo?”

Sam mostly gurgles at him and then looks down at his chest in surprise. Four deep gashes run across, raw and open. Did the bear dig in that deep? Why can’t he feel it? Panic starts to set in, and Sam looks back up at Samuel again, as if he knows the answer.

Samuel reaches for him, his face like stone - Sam thinks of him as a statue tipping forward, and numbly watches as his grandfather’s fingers touch briefly to his chest. A shock of fire burns through him, and Sam blanks out for a moment. He gasps as he takes his next breath, eyes wide and searching. Samuel’s face has relaxed into something more human, and the older hunter starts pulling away.

“Wait,” Sam says hoarsely, hand wrapping around Samuel’s forearm. “What did you just do?”

“We have to go,” Samuel says, ignoring him. Samuel clamps a hand over Sam’s and hauls him to his feet. “Questions later, Sammy.”

Sam makes a face, holding on tight to his grandfather and insists, “No, I’m serious, what did you _do_.”

Samuel huffs a sigh and presses an accusing finger to Sam’s chest. A dry smile curls to life across Samuel’s mouth. “Things would be so much easier if you didn’t insist on trying to die all the time, you know that?” He raises one eyebrow, his expression shifting in a way that is entirely too mischievous for Samuel. “Sammy. Kiddo.”

Then, as realization dawns, Samuel smirks and asks, “Did you miss me~?”

The shock dissipates quickly even though it’s still the face of his grandfather that’s peering at him. Sam manages a mildly surprised, “Gabriel,” followed by, “ You never really die, do you?”

‘Samuel’ gives a nonchalant shrug, his lips pursed in an expression that was all Gabriel’s. “Nah.” Digging through his pocket, the archangel produces a mint that gets popped into his mouth.

Sam can’t stop staring. “How long-”

“Day one,” Gabriel interrupts, flourishing one hand in a manner better suited for a theatre stage, “I like to be method. ...Oh, don’t give me that look - your grandaddy was never in here. Just using the suit.”

“Well, stop it.” Sam can hear Dean shouting for him in the distance. It takes a moment for him to realize that the sounds of fighting and guns going off had stopped long ago. The sound of footsteps running tells Sam he only has a few moments before Dean and Christian would join them. Sam turns to reach out his other hand for Gabriel and hold him in place even though it never does any good.

Gabriel shrugs Samuel’s shoulders and doesn't seem intent on going anywhere. “No can do. Making sure you don’t die is pretty much my job.”

“Since when?” Sam demands.

Gabriel has time to wink once more before his features slide into something more akin to what Samuel Campbell would express. He pats Sam’s shoulder and smiles, relieved, as if they’d just had a close call (which they did, really) and murmurs so only Sam can hear, “I’ve always had an interest in you~”

Dean slows to a stop at Sam’s elbow, looking between the two of them. “We good?”

Sam’s mind is whirling, thinking back to the apocalypse, thinking back to the Mystery Spot, and back to the crows that had watched him in the graveyard.

 _Always._


End file.
